Epictetus

How many people do we think are on the Cornell waitlist? 12-18 or so for six spots? I know the lists can really start moving come April so I'm curious how many people they end up running through. I had all but written off returning to school. I pressed the panic button a few weeks ago after getting rejected from what I considered to be my safety schools, started working harder at what was supposed to be a temporary job, and just got a raise that by itself is about the size of a year of graduate funding. I can't believe I've put myself in a situation where I have to choose between money and comfort and what I'd long considered my passion. Getting some early rejections was a serious wake up call. I now realize how low the odds are of success. Sure, we all said it before, but in the background there's the thought that "Well, I'm different. I can beat the odds." Let's face it, everyone going somewhere outside the Leiter top 20 has murmured that to themselves. But most likely you can't. If we all could, they wouldn't be odds. So now, knowing that the odds apply to me, I know that I face potential futility in 5-6 years, now that much older, and having forgone hundreds of thousands of dollars in the private sector. WTF

I have excellent GRE scores. Perfect Verbal and much better than most on Quant and I've not had a great application season.